Chemical elements

Colombia is a hotspot of mercury pollution from small-scale gold mining. But it’s also a testing ground for a new movement to reduce mercury pollution by paying small-scale miners more to use less of the toxic metal.

One country supplies 75 percent of the world’s platinum. Economic geologist Anthony Naldrett details how platinum from its mines at the Bushveld complex ends up in everything from catalytic converters to expensive bling.

A gold mining boom driven by high global prices is contaminating local villages with toxic lead dust, leading to a crisis that Human Rights Watch says is the worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history.

The way people get acute lead poisoning is through exposure to old paint right at home. The stereotype is of a poor child eating a paint chip in a dilapidated housing project. But, plenty of cases of poisoning come from lead dust, particles too small to notice. And while children living in low-income homes run […]

Most adults’ exposure to lead isn’t enough to endanger their health. But, thousands of people work in close contact with dangerous lead fumes and dust; sometimes without even knowing it. State and federal rules require employers to protect their workers from toxic materials, still, some industries continue to operate with little or no safety precautions […]